Oct. 25, 2006

BIRMINGHAM, Ala. - The Samford football team practiced for about two hours in shells Wednesday afternoon at Seibert Stadium. The Bulldogs are preparing for Saturday night's game at Tennessee State.

Samford enters this week's game with an improved running game. In the last two games, sophomore Marcus Rice has had the two top rushing performances of his Samford career. Rice rushed for a career-high 92 yards at Murray State, and he ran for 67 yards against Tennessee-Martin. Freshman Brock Johnson rushed for a career-high 56 yards in his collegiate debut at Southeast Missouri.

"Brock Johnson brings us some speed," Samford head coach Bill Gray said. "Jeff Bennett (fullback) is a bigger back who can lead. And now that we have Marcus Rice playing well, we will get Adrian Bradley back this week and Justin Ray is now healthy, all of a sudden, we have gone from being very thin back there to having a number of guys we can use.

"Our guys up front feel like they can run the football," Gray said. "If we get behind them and stick with it, the best way to open up the passing game is to establish the run. We have been very fortunate and very pleased with the way we have run it."

Gray said he was pleased with the way his team worked during Wednesday's practice.

"Today went well," Gray said. "We were smoother on some things that we installed yesterday. We feel like we will have a good game plan going into Saturday. We are going to face a very talented Tennessee State team on both sides of the football."

Samford will practice again Thursday afternoon at 4:00 p.m. Saturday night's game is scheduled for a 6:00 p.m. kickoff from Nashville's LP Field.